Journal of the New York Botanical Garden

/ ol. XIII JANUARY, 1912 No. 145
JOURNAL
The New York Botanical Garden
EDITOR
FRED J. SEAVER
Curator
CONTENTS
PAGE
Collecting Fungi on the Pacific Coast i
Conference Notes 14
Notes, News and Comment 15
Accessions 19
PUBLISHED FOR THE GARDEN
A T 41 NORTH QUBBM STREET, LANCASTER, PA.,
RT T H B N EW ERA PRINTING COMPANY
O F F I C E R S 1911.
PRESIDENT— HON. ADDISON BROWN,
VICE- PRESIDENT— ANDREW CARNEGIE,
TREASURER— CHARLES F. COX,
SECRETARY— DR. N. L. BRITTON.
B O A R D OK M A N A G E R S .
1 . ELECTED MANAGERS.
Term expires January, 1913.
THOMAS H. HUBBARD, J. PIERPONT MORGAN,
FRANCIS LYNDE STETSON, GEORGE W. PERKINS,
MYLES TIERNEY.
Term expires January, 1914.
ADDISON BROWN, ROBERT W. DE FOREST,
W. BAYARD CUTTING, JAMES A. SCRYMSER.
Term expires January, 1915.
N. L. BRITTON, JOHN I. KANE,
ANDREW CARNEGIE, W. J. MATHESON,
W. GILMAN THOMPSON.
2. EX- OFFICIO MANAGERS.
THE PRESIDENT OF THE DEPARTMENT OF PURLIC PARKS,
HON. CHARLES B. STOVER.
THE MAYOR OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK,
HON. WILLIAM J. GAYNOR.
3. SCIENTIFIC DIRECTORS.
PROF. H. H. RUSBY, Chairman.
PROF. EDWARD S. BURGESS, PROF. R. A. HARPER,
DR. NICHOLAS MURRAY BUTLER, PROF. JAMES F. KEMP,
CHARLES F. COX, PROF. FREDERIC S. LEE,
PROF. WILLIAM J. GIES, HON. E. L. WINTHROP, JR
G A R D E N S T A F R
DR. N. L. BRITTON, Director- in- Chief.
DR. W. A. MURRILL, Assistanl Director.
DR. JOHN K. SMALL, Head Curator of the Museums.
DR. P. A. RYDBERG, Curator.
DR. MARSHALL A. HOWE, Curator.
DR. ARTHUR HOLLICK, Curator.
FRED J. SEAVER, Curator.
ROBERT S. WILLIAMS, Administrative Assistant.
PERCY WILSON, Assistant Curator; Docent.
GEORGE V. NASH, Head Gardener.
A. B. STOUT, Director of the Laboratories.
DR. JOHN HENDLEY BARNHART, Librarian.
DR. H. H. RUSBY, Curator of the Economic Collections.
DR. WILLIAM J. GIES, Consulting Chemist.
COL. F. A. SCHILLING, Museum Custodian.
JOHN R. BRINLEY, Landscape Engineer.
WALTER S. GROESBECK, Clerk and Accountant.
ARTHUR J. CORBETT, Superintendent.
JOURNAL
OF
The New York Botanical Garden
VOL. XIII January, 1912. No. 145.
; i$&'" •• •
COLLECTING FUNGI ON THE PACIFIC COAST.
DR. N. L. BRITTON, DIRECTOR- IN- CHIEF.
Sir: ^ Following your instructions to explore the Pacific Coast
at several points in search of the larger fungi, I left New York
October 13,' accompanied by Mrs. Murrill, and went first to
Seattle, Washington, whe » e we made our headquarters for two
weeks, and later proceeded down the coast with the approach of
wintry ' weather.
The only stop made on the way to Seattle was at Chicago,
where I visited the Field Museum of Natural History and
delivered a public lecture on edible and poisonous fungi.
From the car windows, a general idea of the botanical features
of the country was obtained, with the gradual change to new
floral elements as new regions were entered. In Minnesota and
North Dakota, immense fields of black prairie soil were becoming
tinged with green by the sprouting wheat, and the last of the
threshing was in progress. Trees were scarce, occurring in
widely scattered groves consisting chiefly of oaks, birches, and
poplars. Crossing the Canadian boundary into Saskatchewan,
similar conditions of soil prevailed, but most of the wheat was
still in the shock, and trees were rarely seen. Beyond Moose
Jaw, much of the pountry is barren and hilly with scattered
clumps of shrubs, resembling moorland, and is suitable only for
grazing. All the lumber used throughout this region for building
and railway purposes is brought from the Canadian Rockies.
Posts and telephone poles are made of western white cedar.
On the morning of the fourth day from Itew York, the moun-
1
tains were reached, and twenty- four hours were required to
cross the two systems between Calgary and the coast. The
scenery of this region is remarkably fine and strongly contrasted
with the boundless stretches of prairie previously traversed. A
complete change also takes place in the flora: splendid coniferous
forests clothe the flanks of the snow- capped mountains, while
aspens, alders, and willows mingle with firs and pines in the
valleys. Extensive ranches with great herds of cattle, horses,
and sheep; mines of various kinds; and large lumber camps and
sawmills are passed in quick succession. At Banff, the Canadian
Government has made one of the largest park reservations in the
world, containing nearly 6,000 square miles of territory. Laggan,
at 5,000 ft. elevation, is a small station with a few log bungalows,
dense forests of firs and pines, and superb scenery. This place
and Glacier, in the Selkirks, appear to be choice localities for
collecting fungi in the summer. The summit of the Rockies
is reached at Stephen, 300 ft. higher than Laggan, where the
" great divide" occurs. A descent of 1,000 ft. is quickly made
to Field, where watches are set to Pacific time, and nearly
another thousand feet brings one to Palliser, named for one of
the first expeditions to explore the Rockies, in 1858.
Golden is at the foot of the Rockies, and across the Columbia
River to the west rise the heavily forested Selkirks still to be
crossed. Among the somber- hued conifers, scattered poplars
stand out vividly in their yellow autumn coloring, and birches
reappear below 3,000 feet. Several new trees, some of them
belonging to the Pacific Coast, make their appearance here.
Early on the morning of the fifth day, the valley of the Fraser
River was reached, at slight elevation above sea- level, and we
entered the rich grazing and lumbering region that continues
all the way to Seattle, where we arrived in the middle of the
afternoon.
Seattle, with a population of 300,000, is one of the most pro­gressive
and promising cities of the West. The climate is mild
and humid, adapted to a luxuriant vegetation; the soil is glacial
drift, through which streams easily wear deep gorges in which
great trees grow and shelter myriads of smaller plants. Some
of the finest of these gorges are included in the system of public
parks; the botanist need not leave the city limits to find splen­did
collecting ground'. Although bear, deer, grouse, wild geese,
pheasants, gophers, etc., abound, there are no noxious reptiles
or insects to disturb the collector. Beyond the city lie immense
primeval forests of great beauty, containing giant red firs and
white cedars over a thousand years old and from six to fourteen
feet in diameter, pine and spruce in abundance, some hemlock,
and scattered trees or clumps of oak, maple, alder, willow, and
cascara. All of these trees are different from our eastern species.
The red fir, Pseudotsuga taxifolia, is the principal timber
tree; the white cedar, Thuya plicata, is extensively used for
shingles and posts, the heartwood containing an oil which resists
decay; the large- leaved maple, Acer macrophyllum, is planted
on the streets for shade throughout much of the Pacific Coast
region, and the trunks often develop cancerous swellings which
supply a fine " curly maple" for furniture; the single species of
oak is usually so knotty and misshapen that its chief use is for
firewood; " Cascara Sagrada," Rhamnus Purshiana, furnishes
the well- known medicinal bark of commerce.
The University of Washington, situated in the suburbs of
Seattle on the shore of Lake Washington, is unexcelled for loca­tion,
the campus being one of the finest in the world. Several
of the permanent buildings and many of the exhibits used in
the exposition of 1909 were afterwards turned over to the uni­versity,
the forestry and ethnology exhibits being particularly
good.
We established ourselves at the University Inn, within a
short distance of the botanical laboratories, and made excur­sions
into Woodland Park, Ravenna Park, the forest north of
Ballard, the shores of Green Lake and Lake Washington, a
peat bog, and other localities that offered good opportunities
for collecting fungi. These excursions were planned by Pro­fessor
T. C. Frye, head of the botanical department, who very
kindly placed at our disposal all necessary facilities. He also
arranged to have Mr. S. M. Zeller, a graduate student in his
department and an excellent collector, accompany me on many
of these excursions.
The number of fungi secured was far greater than I had antic­ipated.
The season was exceptionally good and the weather
unusually favorable both for collecting and preparing the speci­mens.
Four boxes, containing 732 field numbers, or about
2,000 specimens, accompanied by descriptive notes, were sent
to New York at the end of two weeks' stay in Seattle. It is
estimated that over 100 species new to science are represented
in this collection.
On October 26, a visit was made to Tacoma Prairies, about
fifty miles south of Seattle. During the forenoon, the shores
of a lake to the north of the prairie proper were explored and
similar conditions to those at Seattle were encountered, although
a number of species new to our collection were obtained. Here
in the forest of Abies grandis, fine specimens of Fomes Laricis,
a medicinal polypore rare in America, were found on fallen
trunks; also a remarkable " fairy ring" one hundred feet in
circumference formed by seventy- seven sporophores of a species
of Tricholoma, some of them six inches in diameter.
The prairies are formed by a terminal moraine of consider­able
extent, the soil of which is so sterile that very little cover
is found upon it. A short, slender grass, a resurrection moss, a
pretty violet, one or two hawkweeds, and clumps of young
Abies grandis just arriving after so long a time from the adjacent
forest, with scattered specimens of Pinus contorta, constitute the
chief vegetation in the autumn season. A single species of
gill- fungus and a few puffballs grew in the open on these prairies,
but a number of species, many of them similar to those of the
pine barrens and peat bogs about Seattle, were found in the
shade of the clumps of young fir trees.
The pleasure of the Tacoma trip was much enhanced by the
splendid views obtained of Mt. Rainier, whose giant, snow­capped
cone rises to the height of 14,500 feet above the coastal
plains.
On Friday, November 3, we left Seattle for Salem, Oregon,
arriving at 10 P. M. It had been our intention to do some col­lecting
in the vicinity of Salem with Professor Morton E. Peck,
of Willamette University, but we found by conference with him
JOURNAL OF THE NEW YORK BOTANICAL GARDEN. PLATE LX>,
THE WILUnAlETTE RIVER, OREGON
LIFE- SA\ TNG STATION, WITH SCRUB PINES, NEWPORT, OREGC
that instead of three or four inches of rain, the usual quantity
for October, there had been only one- half an inch; so we pro­ceeded
next day to Corvallis and established ourselves near
the new Agricultural Hall of the Oregon State College, within
easy reach by three separate railway lines of the western slopes
of the Cascades, the Coast Range, the intervening valleys, and
the immediate coast. Some of the most promising localities
were selected for us by Professor H. S. Jackson and these were
visited in order. The weather, which had been rather dry for
fungi, became stormy upon our arrival, and every day was more
or less rainy. Periods of low temperature after the rains ap­peared
interfered considerably with the development of gill-fungi,
but by visiting sheltered places a very good representa­tion
of species was obtained.
On Monday, November 6, several hours were spent in explor­ing
a dense fir forest south of Corvallis, which contained scattered
specimens of oak, willow, and maple. A majority of the fungi
found were similar to those at Seattle, but a considerable number
were different; also, several eastern species were collected here
that had not been seen in Washington. Paxillus involutus
reached a foot or more in diameter; Hygrophorus eburneus,
Boletus luteus, and Lactaria deliciosawere very abundant; Hydnum
Auriscalpium occurred commonly on the fir cones; Amani-topsis
vaginata, Craterellus cornucopioides, Marasmius siccus,
Russula nigricans, Tyromyces chioneus, and Armillaria albo-lanaripes
were found once or twice.
The following day, November 7, was spent at Glen Brook,
twenty- three miles south of Corvallis, one of the terminals of
the Corvallis and Alsea River Railway. The speed of the
lumber train was six miles an hour, affording ample oppor­tunity
to make observations along the way. This entire valley
of the Willamette River was formerly a lake and even yet is
flooded during a portion of the winter, when wild geese frequent
it in large numbers. The abundance of wheat stubble and
clover also proves very agreeable to the handsome Chinese
pheasant which has multiplied greatly in this valley since its
introduction in 1877. The hills were covered with gnarled and
twisted oaks, Quercus Garryana, which supported great quanti­ties
of mistletoe and a long gray lichen similar to the Spanish
moss of tropical America. This lichen, a species of Alectoria,
is very abundant on trees of all kinds on the Pacific Coast.
In the old fir forests at Glen Brook, from 400 to 1,000 feet
elevation, there was splendid collecting, and I traveled a linear
distance of about ten miles on foot before the train was ready to
return. Mr. Carter, the owner of much of this woodland and
the promoter of the railway, showed me every courtesy, and while
the sparks from the fir in the fire- box of the engine lighted the
sky like myriads of fireflies, he gave me an account of handling red
fir and white cedar logs twelve feet thick with donkey engines.
Indeed, some of the logs on our train were so large that it was
deemed dangerous to pass the bridge near Corvallis in the dark,
so we left the train there and walked into town.
All of the next day was required in working up the Glen Brook
collection and getting the specimens to drying. On account of the
rains, artificial heat had to be used for all the Oregon collections.
A room with a large sheet- iron stove was devoted to this purpose,
and over the stove were suspended parallel frames of wire netting,
on which the specimens were spread. When completely dried,
they were wrapped in newspaper with the accompanying field
notes and descriptions and laid away in drawers until the time
for packing and shipping arrived, when they were sent by express
to New York to be put into boxes with naphthalene flake and
kept in a dry place until my return. If not shipped promptly,
there is danger of moulding, of insect attack, and of injury from
frequent handling. Colored sketches, made by Mrs. Murrill,
were numbered to correspond with the specimens and retained
for comparison with later novelties.
On November 9, before daybreak, I left for a day's collecting
at Mill City, on the western foothills of the Cascades fifty miles
east of Corvallis, where there are large sawmills and virgin
forests of red fir and other conifers. The yellow fir forests
begin at Granite Mountain, a few miles farther on, but a snow­storm
had visited this region and rendered collecting difficult if
not impossible.
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On arriving at Mill City, I first climbed to 1,200 feet, north of
the town, and spent the forenoon among the ancient red firs that
afforded a partial shelter from the snowstorm that continued
without intermission all day. The fungous flora here was not
extensive, owing to the cold, but was quite different from that
of the Willamette Valley. A large and handsome new species
of polypore was found growing on a rich bank beneath one of
these old firs
The low, dense forests along the river were visited in the after­noon
and many specimens secured, the majority of them similar
to those found at Glen Brook. The next day was devoted to
these collections. An excursion with Professor Jackson was
arranged for Saturday, but an unusually heavy snow and a cold
wave interfered, followed by a cold rain lasting all day Sunday.
On Monday, November 13, I crossed the Willamette River
east of Corvallis and explored the low mixed forest in the river
bottoms, giving attention chiefly to the dead logs and branches
left by the lumbermen. On the under side of these logs, where
the cold had not penetrated, a number of interesting timber-destroying
species occurred. A second visit was also made to
Hyatt's woods, south of town, where a few additional species
had appeared since the heavy rains began.
On the afternoon of November 13, I boarded the daily train
for Newport, situated on the coast at the mouth of Yaquina Bay
seventy- five miles west of Corvallis. For some distance, the
railway crosses the prairie valley of the Willamette and then
begins the ascent of the Coast Range, following the windings of
a rapid mountain stream. All of the timber between Corvallis
and the coast near the railway has been burned off in the past
and there seems little chance to collect except in some of the
small wooded flats along this stream. Just before reaching Sum­mit,
the conditions seem fair. Again, at Elk City, beyond the
Coast Range, another stream joins the one the railway follows
and this flows through good timber several miles above Elk City.
At Yaquina, passengers for Newport cross the bay in a small
steamer, arriving about 6 o'clock at the little seaside resort built
along the bay front and protected from the ocean winds by steep
sandstone hills on the north and northwest. There is a good
hotel and good beaches, which attract a number of transient
visitors during the summer. Also, a good many persons own
cottages along the bay and ocean front.
On the next morning, November 14, I braved the storm that
had raged for two days and explored the pine barrens covering
the sandy headland lying back of the life- saving station. This
proved to be an exceedingly interesting region, yielding many
novelties. I was much impressed with the ability of fleshy fungi
to thrive in almost pure sand. Here under the pines I found
numbers of specimens of the brilliant orange- red form of Amanita
muscaria, which I was to see later in California. Rostkovites
granulatus, one of the edible boleti, also occurred here in great
abundance.
After the turn of the tide, I went eastward from Newport
along the beach a few miles and turned into a lumber trail up a
small stream, where the usual virgin forest conditions prevailed
and the fungous flora was more like that in the Willamette
Valley. The day's collections, which were large and important,
were so saturated with water that they had to be spread out in a
steam- heated room over night to reduce them to a normal con­dition
and prevent many of them from collapsing completely.
During the return journey to Corvallis next morning, I was
able to complete the descriptions and have the specimens ready
for the much- needed drying process.
Continued adverse weather conditions caused us to leave for
California a few days earlier than we had planned. The Oregon
collections, comprising nearly 400 field numbers, were shipped
direct to New York and we caught the midnight express at
Albany, November 16, bound for San Francisco.
The railway journey from Corvallis to San Francisco occupied
two days, our train being held up fourteen hours at Keswick by a
wreck. The Siskiyou Mountains, separating Oregon from Cali­fornia,
were crossed after a very steep climb up to 4,000 feet
from the fertile and beautiful Rogue River Valley. Soon after
leaving Ashland, we entered a forest of oaks so abundantly
covered with mistletoe that the trees appeared evergreen after
JOURNAL OF THE NEW YORK BOTANICAL GARDEN.
IX THE HEART OF MUIR WOODS.
their leaves had fallen. The southeastern slope of the Siskiyou
range was clothed with a splendid forest of Pinus ponderosa,
much resembling the forest of Montezuma pine west of Jalapa
in Mexico.
As we descended into the valley and crossed the line into
California, a very decided change took place in the climate and
the flora, owing to the small rainfall. Stunted, thorny shrubs,
and scattered trees ( Libocedrus decurrens) partly covered old lava
streams and volcanic hillocks. At Redding, cycads were growing
in the open and new trees of various kinds appeared, belonging
to a warmer and drier region. Several species of oaks, most of
them evergreen, took the place of the single species found in
Washington and Oregon. The large spherical live- oaks are left
in the fields for shade, as palms are in the tropics. At Vina, the
largest vineyard in the world, belonging to Stanford University,
is located. The vines are kept cut back to short stumps very
close to the ground, giving them a totally different appearance
from those of either northern or southern Europe. Eucalyptus
trees, so commonly planted in southern California, were first
seen at Marysville, not far from Sacramento. Extensive or­chards,
hop- fields, cattle ranches, and wheat- fields dotted the
valley in this region, and the entire country as far as the eye
could reach seemed a fertile and promising one.
The first excursion for fungi after reaching San Francisco was
made to Golden Gate Park, a large and handsome public planta­tion
overlooking both the city and the ocean. The season, how­ever,
was unusually dry and very few specimens were found, most
of these being gathered among the tree- ferns in a shaded ravine-
During a period of rainy weather, the extensive wooded areas
of this park should yield a rich harvest of fungi.
On Monday, November 20, we visited the University of
California and made arrangements through Professor Setchell
and Mrs. Brandegee to examine the Harkness' types of fungi
placed in storage by the California Academy of Sciences after
the loss of their building during the great earthquake. These
types are in envelopes within pasteboard boxes and are in good
condition. The Academy is preparing to erect a handsome
10
new building in Golden Gate Park in time for the Panama
Exposition.
November 22 was devoted to an excursion to Muir Woods,
the most famous collecting ground in the vicinity of San Fran­cisco.
From Mill Valley, charmingly located among hills and
redwood groves and easily reached by ferry and electric train,
the steep ascent of Mt. Tamalpais is easily negotiated in a train
of special construction and the descent to Muir Woods is made
by a gravity car. This whole region, including the mountain
with its stunted shrubs and herbs, and the deep gorges in its
flanks filled with immense redwoods ( Sequoia sempervirens) and
ferns, is of intense botanical interest.
Muir Woods is one of the few extensive tracts of virgin redwood
forest now in existence. In 1908, the 295 acres comprised in this
tract were given to the National Government by Mr. Kent and
dedicated in honor of John Muir, the celebrated geologist. The
largest trees, reaching 14 feet in diameter and 300 feet in height,
stand on the floor of the canon along the banks of a small stream.
A few other trees, such as fir, alder, maple, and tan- bark oak,
grow sparingly in the twilight between the towering redwood
trunks. Muir Inn, situated on a promontory between two
branches of the main canon, is an excellent base for explorations
in this vicinity. The best season for collecting fungi is usually
during January and February; the best for flowers is probably
in April.
On November 23, I went to Santa Rosa to see Mr. Burbank
and his experimental grounds. After devoting several hours of
his valuable time to my instruction and entertainment among
the long hedgerows of spineless cacti and other interesting and
important products of his genius, Mr. Burbank graciously re­marked:
" Most people take my time; a few give me theirs.
You are of the latter class." One experimental plot of several
acres surrounds the old homestead in the edge of the town; the
other, which is much larger, is at Sebastapol seven miles away.
Mr. Burbank is recognized as the greatest " selecter" of variations
in plants, especially in young plants; there is no limit to his
patience or devotion where a beneficial variety is concerned; he
11
works with millions of seeds and thousands of seedlings in many
plant families and from fd\ parts of the world, and the climate
of Santa Rosa is peculiarly favorable for plant growth and
development. He has the power from long experience to judge
plants at a very early stage, and he has also developed methods
of forcing them quickly into fruit. An old apple tree stands in
his grounds, which has been forced to mother as many as 600 tiny
seedlings at one time in order to induce them to fruit in a year
or two instead of requiring five to ten years. In this and many
other ways, time and space are saved and quick results are
obtained.
On the way to Santa Rosa, the town of San Rafael was passed,
in the vicinity of which Moore collected practically all of the
gill- fungi recorded in Harkness and Moore's list of Pacific Coast
fungi.
On Friday, November 24, we left San Francisco for Palo Alto,
the seat of Stanford University, and arranged for a collecting
trip the next day with Professor L. S. Abrams in the Santa Cruz
Mountains. Starting early, we drove to Preston's Ravine, at
the foot of the mountains, where nearly a hundred numbers were
found; then crossed over the range at an elevation of 2,000 feet
and descended the western slope to La Honda, eighteen miles
from Stanford, where we collected quite a number of interesting
fungi in the moist redwood forest, and returned between seven
and eight o'clock in the evening.
Palo Alto is a model town and Stanford University one of the
most attractive institutions of its kind. The handsome buildings
are all constructed according to a definite plan, and a considerable
part of the campus of 8,000 acres is laid out in walks and drive­ways
shaded with a variety of palms and bordered by groves of
eucalyptus, live- oak, madronio, and various conifers and other
evergreen trees. There are at present about 1,800 students at
Stanford, 500 of whom are women. The institution is planned
to accommodate not over 2,000, and it was decreed by the founder
that not more than one fourth of these should be women, for
the reason that an education under such favorable conditions
and circumstances was deemed more necessary and more useful
to men.
12
Nearly two days were required to properly describe and care
for the collections made at Preston's. Ravine and La Honda.
Some time also was devoted to the examination of specimens
in the herbarium of the university. On the afternoon of Novem­ber
28, I lectured before the professors and students of the
botanical department on the subject of poisonous and edible
fungi. Professor Abrams entertained us at his home the same
evening. The following day, the final shipment of specimens
was made and we left for Los Angeles and Pasadena, arriving
at the latter place in time to enjoy Thanksgiving dinner with
Mr. Daniel Wilson.
Pasadena is blessed with a superb climate, and is the winter
home of one hundred and twenty- five millionaires. The houses
are scattered over the low hills at the foot of Mt. Lowe and Mt.
Wilson, the street borders and large yards being filled with
pepper- trees, palms, climbing roses, orange- trees, and a great
variety of subtropical decorative plants. McClatchie, the my­cologist,
lived here and made the largest existing collection of
the mosses and fungi of southern California.
On the morning of December 1, I left Pasadena on the " Cali­fornia
Limited" for New York, passing quickly from the great,
fertile San Bernardino Valley up to the sterile tableland sparsely
clothed with yucca and sage- brush, and on through the boundless
desert to the region of the Grand Canon and the Petrified Forest,
where huge trees of past ages lie embalmed in agate, thence
through thickets of dwarf red cedar and pinon for hour after
hour, across the continental divide, past the pueblos of various
Indian tribes, over Raton Pass at an elevation of nearly 8,000
feet, and down to the broad cultivated prairies again, with their
wheat, corn, cattle, yucca, cottonwoods, jack- rabbits, and prairie-dog
villages, until the Mississippi was reached at St. Louis.
The journey was broken here to visit the Missouri Botanical
Garden and Washington University. The crowded collections
of tender plants at the garden are to be housed next winter in a
splendid new glasshouse 300 feet long and 60 feet high at the
central dome, about equal in size to the famous Palm House at
Kew Gardens. The library is one of the best in the country,
13
and both it and the extensive herbarium have been largely
transferred to steel cases in a strictly fireproof building. The
fungi collected on the Harriman Alaskan Expedition, some of
which occur also in Washington, are to be found here.
Professor W. Trelease, the director, received me cordially and
devoted most of the day to my instruction, entertaining me at
his home in the evening. Professor G. T. Moore piloted me over
the University, which is rapidly expanding in equipment and
scope, and we lunched together at the University Club. After
dinner, I attended the meeting of the St. Louis Academy of
Sciences, an old and famous organization, of which the botanist
Engelmann was the first president, and Eads, the architect of
the great bridge over the Mississippi, one of the charter members.
Leaving St. Louis Monday night, I arrived in New York early
Wednesday morning, December 6, and found that all my collec­tions
had arrived in excellent condition. For convenience of
reference, a list of these, with localities and numbers, is given
below.
COLLECTIONS ON THE PACIFIC COAST.
Seattle, Washington October 20- November 1 N03. 1- 732
Tacoma, Washington October 26
Tacoma Prairies, Washington October 26
Glen Brook, Oregon November 7 " 733- 792
Mill City, Oregon November 9 " 793- 879
Corvallis, Oregon November 6 - 1 1 . . . . " 880- 1025
Newport, Oregon November 13 " 1026- 1099
Golden Gate Park, California November 21 " 1100- 1124
Muir Woods, California November 22 " 1125- 1158
Preston's Ravine, California November 25 " 1159- 1241
La Honda, California November 25 " 1242- 1305
It is estimated that this collection of fungi comprises about
3,700 specimens, and is easily the largest, most comprehensive,
and best ever made on the Pacific Coast. When it has been
worked over and compared with other collections from the same
region, our knowledge of the fungous flora of that vast and
intensely interesting land lying west of the Cascade Mountains
will be much increased.
Aside from the interesting botanical features of the Pacific
Coast, the botanical explorer cannot fail to be impressed with the
14
vastness of things— ranches, orchards, vineyards, forests, lands
to be tenanted, deserts to be reclaimed, mines to be worked— and
with the big- hearted, patriotic, unshackled, enterprising, hopeful
men and women who are pushing this sect'on to the front. The
enthusiasm everywhere shown in preparation for the coming
Panama Exposition is only an illustration of the human energy
that is actively asserting itself from one end of the Coast to the
other.
Respectfully submitted,
W. A. MURRILL,
Assistant Director.
CONFERENCE NOTES.
The conference of the scientific staff and students was held
in the main laboratory on December 4. The first paper, by
Mr. William R. Maxon, of the U. S. National Museum, was
entitled " Notes on the Tree Ferns of North America." The
speaker enumerated the main features regarded as important
in the major classification of the Cyatheaceae, and particularly
of the tribe Cyatheae which is usually regarded as embracing
three genera, Cyathea, Alsophila and Hemitelia, separated mainly
upon characters of the indusium. Jenman and, more recently,
Copeland have argued against maintaining these genera, the
latter author reducing all to the single genus Cyathea, with
several subgenera. The justification of this treatment was
discussed at some length and the need suggested of a thorough
revision of the group upon characters of minute morphology
other than those of the indusium.
Mr. Maxon also reviewed a recent paper* describing a peculiar
new fern from Panama, Polypodium podocarpum, a subpinnate
species in which the sori are essentially apical upon special lobes
of the pinnae and the apices of the fronds and of the pinnae are
of indefinite evolution. The pinnae are produced frequently
to a remarkable length, especially by injury to other parts of
* Maxon, William R. A remarkable new fern from Panama. ( Smithsonian
Miscellaneous Collections. Vol. 56, part 24. Pp. 1- 5, pis. 1- 3. November 22,
1911.)
15
the frond. Several other examples of indeterminate apical
growth in Polypodium were given and specimens of these shown.
The topic " A Subgenus of Vittaria," was presented by Dr.
R. C. Benedict as follows: Vittaria J. E. Smith is a genus of
perhaps forty species of tropical ferns, nearly all of which have
leaves of grass- like outline. Its classification is, therefore, more
difficult than in the case of most fern genera, and is indeed much
the same problem as would be offered by a genus of grasses if
no flowers and fruits were available. The differentiation of the
species demands a careful study of the microscopic characters
of the spores, paraphyses, and scales, and a study by cross-sections,
of the arrangement of the vascular tissues in stem and
leaf, and of the position in which the sporangia are borne. By
using these methods of study, it has been found possible to deter­mine
specific limits accurately.
The paper presented at the conference was concerned with
one subgenus of Vittaria, Radiovittaria including seven species,
the characters of which have been sufficiently determined for
publication. Illustrations of the seven species were shown.
These with the text descriptions and discussion are shortly to be
published. According to this paper the subgenus Radiovittaria
includes seven species viz., V. minima ( Baker) Benedict, V.
Gardneriana F6e, V. remota Fee, V. stipitata Kunze, V. Morit-ziana
Mett., V. latifolia Benedict, and V. Williamsi Benedict.
The two last mentioned species are to be described in the forth­coming
paper. Both are based on material collected in Bolivia
by Mr. R. S. Williams of the Garden staff. V. minima has
only recently been placed in Vittaria, the material here included
having been previously placed in two other genera.
A. B. STOUT.
NOTES, NEWS AND COMMENT.
Mr. Percy Wilson, assistant curator, spent a part of the month
of December and January collecting in the provinces of Pinar del
Rio and Havana, Cuba.
Mr. W. R. Maxon of the National Museum, Washington,
recently spent several days at the Garden in continuation of
his work on ferns for North American Flora.
16
Dr. Charles Thom of the Experiment Station, Storrs, Con­necticut,
spent a day at the Garden recently, consulting the
library.
Dr. B. M. Davis, assistant professor of botany in the Uni­versity
of Pennsylvania, was at the Garden December 19, looking
up specimens of Oenothera to be used in work on mutation.
Dr. C. B. Robinson, formerly in the employ of the Garden,
and for the past three years economic botanist in the Bureau of
Science, Manila, has returned and is spending some time at the
Garden.
Professor J. C. Arthur and Dr. F. D. Kern spent several days
at the Garden the early part of January studying rusts in con­nection
with work on North American Flora.
Mr. R. E. Stone of Cornell University visited the Garden in
January to consult the fungous collections with special reference
to parasites on leguminous plants.
Among other recent visitors at the Garden were Drs. A. F.
Blakeslee and G. P. Clinton of the Agricultural College, Storrs,
Connecticut; Professors J. C. Blair and Chalres D. Crandall of
the University of Illinois; Dr. E. W. Olive of the State College
of South Dakota and Professor R. B. Thomson of the University
of Toronto.
Mr. Edward W. Berry, formerly a student of the Garden,
has recently published a book ( Bulletin No. 3 of the Geological
Survey of New Jersey) of 233 pages and 29 plates on " The
Raritan Formation." About 100 of the 128 plate figures of
fossil plants are reproductions of figures in Newberry's " Flora
of the Amboy Clays," the type specimens of which are in the
museum of the New York Botanical Garden. Numerous in­cidental
references may also be found to other types and figured
specimens in the museum, collected by Dr. Arthur Hollick in
Long Island, Block Island and Martha's Vineyard.
The meeting of the various scientific societies of the country
at Washington during Christmas week was a notable one and
well attended. The botanists had very full programs, as well
as a dinner and a smoker, in which between one hundred and
17
two hundred took part. The Garden was represented by Dr.
N. L. Britton, Dr. W. A. Murrill, Professor R. A. Harper, and
Mr. A. B. Stout. A movement to unite all American botanical
associations under the Botanical Society of America was auspi­ciously
inaugurated. The next meeting of the societies will be
held in Cleveland; and the one following in Atlanta.
The Field Museum of Natural History, which has cooperated
with the Garden in explorations in the Bahamas, will shortly
erect a new museum building costing about five million dollars.
The collections will be grouped in it under Anthropology, Botany,
Geology, and Zoology. The California Academy of Sciences
is also to have a new building in time for the Panama Exposition.
A new tropical laboratory for botanical and zoological re­search
is soon to be established at Mayaguez, Porto Rico, with
Dr. F. L. Stevens as director.
Dr. W. J. Gies, consulting chemist of the Garden and professor
of biological chemistry in Columbia University, is one of the
editors and has been very active in the establishment of the
Biochemical Bulletin, volume I, No. I of which appeared re­cently.
This publication which is to appear quarterly, each
volume containing about five hundred pages, is the official organ
of the Columbia University Biochemical Association for the
publication of papers of a biochemical nature. In addition to the
publication of biochemical research, some of the aims of the
Bulletin are the extension of general biochemical knowledge and
to furnish a means of keeping the workers in the home laboratories
in closer touch with those who have gone out to other fields of
labor. The first number of the bulletin contains 160 pages and
is devoted to scientific papers and notes and news of a biochemical
nature. One of the papers ( pp. 7- 41, with three plates) is by
Professor Francis Ernest Lloyd and is entitled, " The tannin-colloid
complexes in the fruit of the persimmon, Diospyros."
We understand that the Biochemical Bulletin will aim to give
special encouragement to the development of chemical studies
in botany and that chemical papers on botanical subjects will
be welcomed to its pages. Botanists are accordingly invited to
contribute to the success and usefulness of the Bulletin.
Among the editors and collaborators we note the names of
the following botanists: Carl L. Alsberg, Gertrude S. Burling­ham,
E. D. Clark, C. A. Darling, C. Stuart Gager, Benjamin
C. Gruenberg, William T. Home, Homer D. House, J. E.
Kirkwood, Elsie A. Kupfer, Burton E. Livingston, Winifred J.
Robinson, Fred J. Seaver and A. D. Selby.
Many of the orchids in range I are now flowering freely. In
house no. 15, next to the large dome, many of the Venus- slip­pers,
represented by the genera Paphiopedilum and Phragmi-pedium
are in bloom. Among these maybe mentioned, as espe­cially
attractive, Paphiopedilum Alcides and P. " Wm. McKin-ley,"
of hybrid origin, and an unusually fine form of Paphiopedi­lum
insigne, known as Harefield Hall. The flower of this variety
is especially large, with the standard broad and flat and beauti­fully
marked with large spots. It is one of the best of the P
insigne forms. Many of the genus Phragmipedium are also in
bloom. One of these, of hybrid origin, is P. Cleola, a pure white
flushed with rose, and resembling, in general form, the native
white lady- slipper, Cypridedium reginae. The rosy flowers of
Laelia anceps, a Mexican species, are just making their appear­ance,
and the striking Laelia superbiens, well described by its
specific name, is coming into flower, its bright flowers borne, as
in many others of the genus, in bunches at the top of long naked
stems. It is a native of Guatemala. In strong contrast to this
is Laelia flava, of Brazil, with its smaller yellow flowers. A plant
of the Javanese orchid, Vanda tricolor suavis, with large white
flowers spotted with purple, is attractive, not only on account of
the beauty of its colorings, but also for its pleasing fragrance.
In the far- away Philippines grows Platyclinis glumacea. An ex­cellent
plant pf this is now in full bloom with many long slender
drooping racemes of yellowish flowers. Oncidium Kramerianum,
wild in northern South America, is striking in its coloring of
orange and brown. The flower, with its long tail- like petals, is
at the end of a long naked stem, resembling much a butterfly at
rest, hence its name of the butterfly orchid. There are many
other interesting orchids in this house. In house no. 12 are
ID
many plants of the Himalayan, Paphiopedilum insigne, in a
number of color varieties, now in a profusion of bloom; and next
to these a collection of the Andean genus, Masdevallia, some of
which are now flowering.
Meteorology for December.— The total precipitation for Decem­ber
was 4.09 inches of which 1.48 inches fell as snow. The
maximum temperature of 650 was recorded on December 12 and
a minimum temperature of 10.50 was recorded on December 5.
ACCESSIONS.
MUSEUMS AND HERBARIUM.
14 specimens of hepatics from Quebec. ( Given by Dr. C. B. Robinson.)
4 specimens of mosses from Missouri. ( By exchange with Dr. John Davis.)
2 specimens of Leskea algarvica from Portugal. ( By exchange with Dr. George
Roth.)
3 specimens of mosses from Guadeloupe Island, Lower California. ( Collected
by Dr. J. N. Rose.)
18 specimens of Andreaea from Greenland, Sweden and Spitzbergen. ( Given by
Dr. A. LeRoy Andrews.)
13 specimens of flowering plants from the eastern United States. ( Given by
Mr. E. E. Steele.)
2 specimens of Chamaesyce glyptosperma from Ontario. ( Given, by Mr. John
Dearness.)
1 specimen of Chamaesyce from Italy. ( Given by Dr. N. L. Britton.)
1 specimen of Kneiffia Sumstinei from Pennsylvania. ( By exchange with the
Carnegie Museum, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.)
2 specimens of Linaria Linaria from Ontario. ( Given by Mr. William Scott.)
2 specimens of mosses from Saguenay County, Quebec, ( Given by Dr. C. B.
Robinson.)
4 specimens of Riccia from Connecticut. ( Given by Miss Annie Lorenz.)
4,500 specimens from Cuba. ( Collected by Dr. J. A. Shafer.)
1 specimen of Parthenium Hysterophorus from Louisiana. ( Given by Mr. E. C.
Wurzlow.)
1 specimen of Festuca octoflora from Alabama. ( Given by Dr. R. M. Harper.)
60 specimens of ferns from eastern North America. ( Distributed by Dr. Philip
Dowell.)
2 specimens of fungi from Siberia. ( Given by the United States Department of
Agriculture.)
3,700 specimens of fungi from Washington, Oregon and California. ( Collected
by Dr. and Mrs. W. A. Murrill.)
II specimens of ferns from the vicinity of New York City. ( Given by Dr,
Philip Dowell.)
20
86 herbarium specimens from British America. ( By exchange with the Geo­logical
Survey of Canada.)
2 herbarium specimens from New York. ( Given by Mr. K. P. Janson.)
49 specimens of flowering plants from Colorado. ( By exchange with Mr-
George E. Osterhout.)
4 specimens of fungi from North America. ( By exchange with Professor J. C.
Arthur.)
164 herbarium specimens from British Columbia and Hudson Bay. ( By ex­change
with the Geological Survey of Canada.)
4 specimens of Amaranthaceae from Ohio. ( By exchange with Professor John
H. Schaffner.)
2 specimens of Xanthium from Colorado. ( By exchange with Professor J. C
Arthur and Dr. F. D. Kern.)
5 specimens of Potentilla. ( By exchange with the Seed Laboratory, Ottawa,
Canada.)
48 specimens of mosses from Washington and Oregon. ( By exchange with
Professor A. S. Foster.)
407 specimens from St. Eustatius, Saba and St. Martin, West Indies. ( By
exchange with the Botanical Garden, Utrecht, Holland.)
PLANTS AND SEEDS.
12 plants for conservatories. ( By exchange with National Museum, through
Dr. J. N. Rose.)
2 plants of Agave. ( Given by Mrs. C. Cole Bradley.)
3 plants of Campanula isophylla. ( Given by Mrs. N. L. Britton.)
1 plant of Primula. ( Given by Dr. H. H. Rusby.)
1,260 lily bulbs for decorative plantations. ( Purchased.)
1 plant of Cycas revoluta. ( Given by Mrs. J. H. T. Stempel.)
6 plants of Cordyiine australis. ( Given by Mr. H. Schniewind, Jr.)
3 orchids for conservatories. ( By exchange with Messrs. Lager & Hurrell.)
2 plants for conservatories. ( By exchange with Messrs. Knight & Struck.)
6 orchids for the conservatories. ( By exchange with Mr. J. A. Manda.)
66 plants for conservatories, derived from seeds from; various sources.
2 packets of seeds of Manihot. ( Given by Mr. F. H. Hunicke.)
1 packet of seed. ( Given by Dr. H. H. Rusby.)
Aembers of tbe Corporation*
EDWARD D. ADAMS,
JOHN D. ARCHBOLD,
GEORGE F. EAKER,
EUGENE P. BICKNELL,
GEORGE S. BOWDOIN,
PROF. N. L. BRITTON,
HON. ADDISON BROWN,
PROF. EDW. S. BURGESS,
DR. NICHOLAS M. BUTLER,
ANDREW CARNEGIE,
PROF. C. F. CHANDLER,
WILLIAM G. CHOATE.
CHARLES F, Cox,
PAUL D. CRAVATH,
W. BAYARD CUTTING,
CLEVELAND H. DODGE.
A. F. ESTABROOK.
H. C. FAHNESTOCK,
SAMUEL W. FAIRCHILD,
JAMES B. FORD,
HENRY W. DE FOREST,
ROBERT W. DE FOREST,
PROF. W. J. GIES,
PROF. R. A. HARPER,
EDWARD S. HARKNESS,
HENRY R. HOYT,
THOS. H. HUBBARD,
ADRIAN ISELIN, JR.,
WALTER B. JENNINGS,
JOHN I. KANE,
EUGENE KELLY, JR.,
PROF. JAMES F. KEMP,
HON. EGERTON L.
EDW. V. Z. LANE,
PROF. FREDERIC S. LEE,
HON. SETH LOW,
DAVID LYDIG,
EDGAR L. MARSTON,
W. J. MATHESON,
OGDEN MILLS,
J. PIERPONT MORGAN,
THEODORE W. MYERS,
FREDERIC R. NEWBOLD,
PROF. HENRY F. OSBORN,
LOWELL M. PALMER,
GEORGE W. PERKINS,
JAMES R. PITCHER,
M. F. PLANT,
JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER,
WILLIAM ROCKEFELLER,
PROF. H. H. RUSBY,
JACOB H. SCHIFF,
MORTIMER L. SCHIFF,
JAMES A. SCRYMSER,
HENRY A. SIEBRECHT,
WILLIAM D. SLOANE,
NELSON SMITH,
JAMES SPEYER,
FRANCIS L. STETSON,
CHARLES G. THOMPSON,
DR. W. GILMAN THOMPKA
SAMUEL THORNE,
MYLES TIERNEY,
LOUIS C. TIFFANY,
GEORGE W. VANDERBILT,
WINTHROP, JR.
P U B L I C A T I O N S
The New York Botanical Garden
J o u r n a l oi t h e N e w Y o r k Botanical Garden, monthly, illustrated, con
Uining notes, and non- technical articles of general interest. Free to members of the
Garden. To others, i o cents a copy; $ 1,00 a year. Now in its twelfth volume.
Mycologia, bimonthly, illustrated in color and otherwise ; devoted to fungi,
including lichens; containing technical articles and news and notes of general in­terest.
£ 3.00 a year ; single copies not for sale. [ Not offered in exchange.] Now
in its third volume.
Bulletin of the N e w Y o r k B o t a n i c a l Garden, containing the annual reports
of the Director- in- Chief and other official documents, and technical articles embodying
results of investigations carried out in the Garden. Free to all members of the
Garden ; to others, $ 3.00 per volume. Seven volumes.
N o r t h American Flora. Descriptions of the wild plants of North America,
including Greenland, the West Indies and Central America. Planned to be com­pleted
in thirty volumes. Roy. 8vo. Each volume to consist of four or more parts.
Subscription price $ 1.50 per part; a limited number of separate parts will be sold
for $ 2.00 each. [ Not offered in exchange.]
Vol. 22, part 1, issued May 22, 1905. Rosales: Podostemonaceae, Crassula­ceae,
Penthoraceae, Parnassiaceae.
Vol. 22, part 2, issued December 18, 1905. Saxifragaceae, Hydrangeaceae,
Cunoniaceae, Iteaceae, Hamamelidaceae, Pterostemonaceae, Altingiaceae, Phyllo-oomaceae.
Vol. 7, part 1, issued Oct. 4, 1006. Ustilaginaceae, Tilletiaceae.
Vol. 7, part 2, issued March 6, 1907. Coleosporiaceae, Uredinaceae, Aecidia-ceae
( pars).
Vol. 25, part 1, issued August 24, 1907. Geraniaceae, Oxalidaceae, Linaceae,
Erythroxylaceae.
Vol. 9, parts 1 and 2, issued December 19, 1907, and March 12, 1908. Poly-poraceae.
( Parts I and 2 no longer sold separately.)
Vol. 22, part 3, issued June 12, 1908. Grossulariaceae, Platanaceae, Crosioso-mataceae,
Connaraceae, Calycanthaceae, Rosaceae ( pars).
Vol. 22, part 4, issued Nov. 20, 1908. Rosaceae ( pars).
Vol. 17, part 1, issued June 30, 1909. Typhales— Poales.
Vol. 16, part 1, issued Nov. 6, 1909 Ophioglossales— Filicales.
Vol. 9, part 3, issued Feb. 3, 1910. Boletaceae, Chantereleae, and Lactarieae
( pars).
Vol, 25, part 2, issued Tune 3, 1910. Tropaeolaceae— Malpighiaceae.
Vol. 3, part I, issued Dec. 29, 1910. Nectriaceae, Hypocreaceae, Chaetomiaceae,
Fimetariaceae.
Vol. 25, part 3, issued May 6, 1911. Rutaceae— Burseraceae.
Memoirs of t h e N e w Y o r k Botanical Gardeu. Price to members of the
Garden, $ 1.00 per volume. To others, $ 2.00. [ Not offered in exchange.]
Vol. I. An Annotated Catalogue of the Flora of Montana and the Yellowstone
Park, by Per Axel Rydberg. ix - f- 492 p p . , with detailed map. 1900.
Vol. I I . The Influence of Light and Darkness upon Growth and Development,
by D. T. MacDougal. xvi + 320 p p . , with 176 figures. 1903.
Vol. I I I . Studies of Cretaceous Coniferous Remains from Kreischerville, New
York, by Dr. Arthur Hollick and Dr. Edward Charles Jeffrey, viii- J- 138 pp., with
29 plates. 1909.
Vol. IV. Effects of the Rays of Radium on Plants, by Charles Stuart Gager.
viii - f- 278 pp., with 73 figures and 14 plates. 1908.
C o n t r i b u t i o n s from the N e w Y o r k Botanical Garden. A series of tech­nical
papers written by students or members of the staff, _ nd reprinted from joumali
other than the above. Price, 25 cents each. $ 5.00 per volume. Five volumes.
R E C E N T N U M B E R S 25 C E N T S EACH.
143. Results of a Preliminary Study of the So- called Kenai Flora of Alaska bv
Arthur Hollick. 7
144. The Paleobotanical Collections of the New York Botanical Garden bv
Arthur Hollick. ' J
145. Notes on Rosaceae— VI, by P. A. Rydberg.
146. Phycological Studies- V. Some Marine Algae of Lower California
Mexico, by Marshall A. Howe.
NEW YORK BOTANICAL GARDEN
BRONX PARK. NPW YORK AITV

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/ ol. XIII JANUARY, 1912 No. 145
JOURNAL
The New York Botanical Garden
EDITOR
FRED J. SEAVER
Curator
CONTENTS
PAGE
Collecting Fungi on the Pacific Coast i
Conference Notes 14
Notes, News and Comment 15
Accessions 19
PUBLISHED FOR THE GARDEN
A T 41 NORTH QUBBM STREET, LANCASTER, PA.,
RT T H B N EW ERA PRINTING COMPANY
O F F I C E R S 1911.
PRESIDENT— HON. ADDISON BROWN,
VICE- PRESIDENT— ANDREW CARNEGIE,
TREASURER— CHARLES F. COX,
SECRETARY— DR. N. L. BRITTON.
B O A R D OK M A N A G E R S .
1 . ELECTED MANAGERS.
Term expires January, 1913.
THOMAS H. HUBBARD, J. PIERPONT MORGAN,
FRANCIS LYNDE STETSON, GEORGE W. PERKINS,
MYLES TIERNEY.
Term expires January, 1914.
ADDISON BROWN, ROBERT W. DE FOREST,
W. BAYARD CUTTING, JAMES A. SCRYMSER.
Term expires January, 1915.
N. L. BRITTON, JOHN I. KANE,
ANDREW CARNEGIE, W. J. MATHESON,
W. GILMAN THOMPSON.
2. EX- OFFICIO MANAGERS.
THE PRESIDENT OF THE DEPARTMENT OF PURLIC PARKS,
HON. CHARLES B. STOVER.
THE MAYOR OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK,
HON. WILLIAM J. GAYNOR.
3. SCIENTIFIC DIRECTORS.
PROF. H. H. RUSBY, Chairman.
PROF. EDWARD S. BURGESS, PROF. R. A. HARPER,
DR. NICHOLAS MURRAY BUTLER, PROF. JAMES F. KEMP,
CHARLES F. COX, PROF. FREDERIC S. LEE,
PROF. WILLIAM J. GIES, HON. E. L. WINTHROP, JR
G A R D E N S T A F R
DR. N. L. BRITTON, Director- in- Chief.
DR. W. A. MURRILL, Assistanl Director.
DR. JOHN K. SMALL, Head Curator of the Museums.
DR. P. A. RYDBERG, Curator.
DR. MARSHALL A. HOWE, Curator.
DR. ARTHUR HOLLICK, Curator.
FRED J. SEAVER, Curator.
ROBERT S. WILLIAMS, Administrative Assistant.
PERCY WILSON, Assistant Curator; Docent.
GEORGE V. NASH, Head Gardener.
A. B. STOUT, Director of the Laboratories.
DR. JOHN HENDLEY BARNHART, Librarian.
DR. H. H. RUSBY, Curator of the Economic Collections.
DR. WILLIAM J. GIES, Consulting Chemist.
COL. F. A. SCHILLING, Museum Custodian.
JOHN R. BRINLEY, Landscape Engineer.
WALTER S. GROESBECK, Clerk and Accountant.
ARTHUR J. CORBETT, Superintendent.
JOURNAL
OF
The New York Botanical Garden
VOL. XIII January, 1912. No. 145.
; i$&'" •• •
COLLECTING FUNGI ON THE PACIFIC COAST.
DR. N. L. BRITTON, DIRECTOR- IN- CHIEF.
Sir: ^ Following your instructions to explore the Pacific Coast
at several points in search of the larger fungi, I left New York
October 13,' accompanied by Mrs. Murrill, and went first to
Seattle, Washington, whe » e we made our headquarters for two
weeks, and later proceeded down the coast with the approach of
wintry ' weather.
The only stop made on the way to Seattle was at Chicago,
where I visited the Field Museum of Natural History and
delivered a public lecture on edible and poisonous fungi.
From the car windows, a general idea of the botanical features
of the country was obtained, with the gradual change to new
floral elements as new regions were entered. In Minnesota and
North Dakota, immense fields of black prairie soil were becoming
tinged with green by the sprouting wheat, and the last of the
threshing was in progress. Trees were scarce, occurring in
widely scattered groves consisting chiefly of oaks, birches, and
poplars. Crossing the Canadian boundary into Saskatchewan,
similar conditions of soil prevailed, but most of the wheat was
still in the shock, and trees were rarely seen. Beyond Moose
Jaw, much of the pountry is barren and hilly with scattered
clumps of shrubs, resembling moorland, and is suitable only for
grazing. All the lumber used throughout this region for building
and railway purposes is brought from the Canadian Rockies.
Posts and telephone poles are made of western white cedar.
On the morning of the fourth day from Itew York, the moun-
1
tains were reached, and twenty- four hours were required to
cross the two systems between Calgary and the coast. The
scenery of this region is remarkably fine and strongly contrasted
with the boundless stretches of prairie previously traversed. A
complete change also takes place in the flora: splendid coniferous
forests clothe the flanks of the snow- capped mountains, while
aspens, alders, and willows mingle with firs and pines in the
valleys. Extensive ranches with great herds of cattle, horses,
and sheep; mines of various kinds; and large lumber camps and
sawmills are passed in quick succession. At Banff, the Canadian
Government has made one of the largest park reservations in the
world, containing nearly 6,000 square miles of territory. Laggan,
at 5,000 ft. elevation, is a small station with a few log bungalows,
dense forests of firs and pines, and superb scenery. This place
and Glacier, in the Selkirks, appear to be choice localities for
collecting fungi in the summer. The summit of the Rockies
is reached at Stephen, 300 ft. higher than Laggan, where the
" great divide" occurs. A descent of 1,000 ft. is quickly made
to Field, where watches are set to Pacific time, and nearly
another thousand feet brings one to Palliser, named for one of
the first expeditions to explore the Rockies, in 1858.
Golden is at the foot of the Rockies, and across the Columbia
River to the west rise the heavily forested Selkirks still to be
crossed. Among the somber- hued conifers, scattered poplars
stand out vividly in their yellow autumn coloring, and birches
reappear below 3,000 feet. Several new trees, some of them
belonging to the Pacific Coast, make their appearance here.
Early on the morning of the fifth day, the valley of the Fraser
River was reached, at slight elevation above sea- level, and we
entered the rich grazing and lumbering region that continues
all the way to Seattle, where we arrived in the middle of the
afternoon.
Seattle, with a population of 300,000, is one of the most pro­gressive
and promising cities of the West. The climate is mild
and humid, adapted to a luxuriant vegetation; the soil is glacial
drift, through which streams easily wear deep gorges in which
great trees grow and shelter myriads of smaller plants. Some
of the finest of these gorges are included in the system of public
parks; the botanist need not leave the city limits to find splen­did
collecting ground'. Although bear, deer, grouse, wild geese,
pheasants, gophers, etc., abound, there are no noxious reptiles
or insects to disturb the collector. Beyond the city lie immense
primeval forests of great beauty, containing giant red firs and
white cedars over a thousand years old and from six to fourteen
feet in diameter, pine and spruce in abundance, some hemlock,
and scattered trees or clumps of oak, maple, alder, willow, and
cascara. All of these trees are different from our eastern species.
The red fir, Pseudotsuga taxifolia, is the principal timber
tree; the white cedar, Thuya plicata, is extensively used for
shingles and posts, the heartwood containing an oil which resists
decay; the large- leaved maple, Acer macrophyllum, is planted
on the streets for shade throughout much of the Pacific Coast
region, and the trunks often develop cancerous swellings which
supply a fine " curly maple" for furniture; the single species of
oak is usually so knotty and misshapen that its chief use is for
firewood; " Cascara Sagrada," Rhamnus Purshiana, furnishes
the well- known medicinal bark of commerce.
The University of Washington, situated in the suburbs of
Seattle on the shore of Lake Washington, is unexcelled for loca­tion,
the campus being one of the finest in the world. Several
of the permanent buildings and many of the exhibits used in
the exposition of 1909 were afterwards turned over to the uni­versity,
the forestry and ethnology exhibits being particularly
good.
We established ourselves at the University Inn, within a
short distance of the botanical laboratories, and made excur­sions
into Woodland Park, Ravenna Park, the forest north of
Ballard, the shores of Green Lake and Lake Washington, a
peat bog, and other localities that offered good opportunities
for collecting fungi. These excursions were planned by Pro­fessor
T. C. Frye, head of the botanical department, who very
kindly placed at our disposal all necessary facilities. He also
arranged to have Mr. S. M. Zeller, a graduate student in his
department and an excellent collector, accompany me on many
of these excursions.
The number of fungi secured was far greater than I had antic­ipated.
The season was exceptionally good and the weather
unusually favorable both for collecting and preparing the speci­mens.
Four boxes, containing 732 field numbers, or about
2,000 specimens, accompanied by descriptive notes, were sent
to New York at the end of two weeks' stay in Seattle. It is
estimated that over 100 species new to science are represented
in this collection.
On October 26, a visit was made to Tacoma Prairies, about
fifty miles south of Seattle. During the forenoon, the shores
of a lake to the north of the prairie proper were explored and
similar conditions to those at Seattle were encountered, although
a number of species new to our collection were obtained. Here
in the forest of Abies grandis, fine specimens of Fomes Laricis,
a medicinal polypore rare in America, were found on fallen
trunks; also a remarkable " fairy ring" one hundred feet in
circumference formed by seventy- seven sporophores of a species
of Tricholoma, some of them six inches in diameter.
The prairies are formed by a terminal moraine of consider­able
extent, the soil of which is so sterile that very little cover
is found upon it. A short, slender grass, a resurrection moss, a
pretty violet, one or two hawkweeds, and clumps of young
Abies grandis just arriving after so long a time from the adjacent
forest, with scattered specimens of Pinus contorta, constitute the
chief vegetation in the autumn season. A single species of
gill- fungus and a few puffballs grew in the open on these prairies,
but a number of species, many of them similar to those of the
pine barrens and peat bogs about Seattle, were found in the
shade of the clumps of young fir trees.
The pleasure of the Tacoma trip was much enhanced by the
splendid views obtained of Mt. Rainier, whose giant, snow­capped
cone rises to the height of 14,500 feet above the coastal
plains.
On Friday, November 3, we left Seattle for Salem, Oregon,
arriving at 10 P. M. It had been our intention to do some col­lecting
in the vicinity of Salem with Professor Morton E. Peck,
of Willamette University, but we found by conference with him
JOURNAL OF THE NEW YORK BOTANICAL GARDEN. PLATE LX>,
THE WILUnAlETTE RIVER, OREGON
LIFE- SA\ TNG STATION, WITH SCRUB PINES, NEWPORT, OREGC
that instead of three or four inches of rain, the usual quantity
for October, there had been only one- half an inch; so we pro­ceeded
next day to Corvallis and established ourselves near
the new Agricultural Hall of the Oregon State College, within
easy reach by three separate railway lines of the western slopes
of the Cascades, the Coast Range, the intervening valleys, and
the immediate coast. Some of the most promising localities
were selected for us by Professor H. S. Jackson and these were
visited in order. The weather, which had been rather dry for
fungi, became stormy upon our arrival, and every day was more
or less rainy. Periods of low temperature after the rains ap­peared
interfered considerably with the development of gill-fungi,
but by visiting sheltered places a very good representa­tion
of species was obtained.
On Monday, November 6, several hours were spent in explor­ing
a dense fir forest south of Corvallis, which contained scattered
specimens of oak, willow, and maple. A majority of the fungi
found were similar to those at Seattle, but a considerable number
were different; also, several eastern species were collected here
that had not been seen in Washington. Paxillus involutus
reached a foot or more in diameter; Hygrophorus eburneus,
Boletus luteus, and Lactaria deliciosawere very abundant; Hydnum
Auriscalpium occurred commonly on the fir cones; Amani-topsis
vaginata, Craterellus cornucopioides, Marasmius siccus,
Russula nigricans, Tyromyces chioneus, and Armillaria albo-lanaripes
were found once or twice.
The following day, November 7, was spent at Glen Brook,
twenty- three miles south of Corvallis, one of the terminals of
the Corvallis and Alsea River Railway. The speed of the
lumber train was six miles an hour, affording ample oppor­tunity
to make observations along the way. This entire valley
of the Willamette River was formerly a lake and even yet is
flooded during a portion of the winter, when wild geese frequent
it in large numbers. The abundance of wheat stubble and
clover also proves very agreeable to the handsome Chinese
pheasant which has multiplied greatly in this valley since its
introduction in 1877. The hills were covered with gnarled and
twisted oaks, Quercus Garryana, which supported great quanti­ties
of mistletoe and a long gray lichen similar to the Spanish
moss of tropical America. This lichen, a species of Alectoria,
is very abundant on trees of all kinds on the Pacific Coast.
In the old fir forests at Glen Brook, from 400 to 1,000 feet
elevation, there was splendid collecting, and I traveled a linear
distance of about ten miles on foot before the train was ready to
return. Mr. Carter, the owner of much of this woodland and
the promoter of the railway, showed me every courtesy, and while
the sparks from the fir in the fire- box of the engine lighted the
sky like myriads of fireflies, he gave me an account of handling red
fir and white cedar logs twelve feet thick with donkey engines.
Indeed, some of the logs on our train were so large that it was
deemed dangerous to pass the bridge near Corvallis in the dark,
so we left the train there and walked into town.
All of the next day was required in working up the Glen Brook
collection and getting the specimens to drying. On account of the
rains, artificial heat had to be used for all the Oregon collections.
A room with a large sheet- iron stove was devoted to this purpose,
and over the stove were suspended parallel frames of wire netting,
on which the specimens were spread. When completely dried,
they were wrapped in newspaper with the accompanying field
notes and descriptions and laid away in drawers until the time
for packing and shipping arrived, when they were sent by express
to New York to be put into boxes with naphthalene flake and
kept in a dry place until my return. If not shipped promptly,
there is danger of moulding, of insect attack, and of injury from
frequent handling. Colored sketches, made by Mrs. Murrill,
were numbered to correspond with the specimens and retained
for comparison with later novelties.
On November 9, before daybreak, I left for a day's collecting
at Mill City, on the western foothills of the Cascades fifty miles
east of Corvallis, where there are large sawmills and virgin
forests of red fir and other conifers. The yellow fir forests
begin at Granite Mountain, a few miles farther on, but a snow­storm
had visited this region and rendered collecting difficult if
not impossible.
et 3
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H
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On arriving at Mill City, I first climbed to 1,200 feet, north of
the town, and spent the forenoon among the ancient red firs that
afforded a partial shelter from the snowstorm that continued
without intermission all day. The fungous flora here was not
extensive, owing to the cold, but was quite different from that
of the Willamette Valley. A large and handsome new species
of polypore was found growing on a rich bank beneath one of
these old firs
The low, dense forests along the river were visited in the after­noon
and many specimens secured, the majority of them similar
to those found at Glen Brook. The next day was devoted to
these collections. An excursion with Professor Jackson was
arranged for Saturday, but an unusually heavy snow and a cold
wave interfered, followed by a cold rain lasting all day Sunday.
On Monday, November 13, I crossed the Willamette River
east of Corvallis and explored the low mixed forest in the river
bottoms, giving attention chiefly to the dead logs and branches
left by the lumbermen. On the under side of these logs, where
the cold had not penetrated, a number of interesting timber-destroying
species occurred. A second visit was also made to
Hyatt's woods, south of town, where a few additional species
had appeared since the heavy rains began.
On the afternoon of November 13, I boarded the daily train
for Newport, situated on the coast at the mouth of Yaquina Bay
seventy- five miles west of Corvallis. For some distance, the
railway crosses the prairie valley of the Willamette and then
begins the ascent of the Coast Range, following the windings of
a rapid mountain stream. All of the timber between Corvallis
and the coast near the railway has been burned off in the past
and there seems little chance to collect except in some of the
small wooded flats along this stream. Just before reaching Sum­mit,
the conditions seem fair. Again, at Elk City, beyond the
Coast Range, another stream joins the one the railway follows
and this flows through good timber several miles above Elk City.
At Yaquina, passengers for Newport cross the bay in a small
steamer, arriving about 6 o'clock at the little seaside resort built
along the bay front and protected from the ocean winds by steep
sandstone hills on the north and northwest. There is a good
hotel and good beaches, which attract a number of transient
visitors during the summer. Also, a good many persons own
cottages along the bay and ocean front.
On the next morning, November 14, I braved the storm that
had raged for two days and explored the pine barrens covering
the sandy headland lying back of the life- saving station. This
proved to be an exceedingly interesting region, yielding many
novelties. I was much impressed with the ability of fleshy fungi
to thrive in almost pure sand. Here under the pines I found
numbers of specimens of the brilliant orange- red form of Amanita
muscaria, which I was to see later in California. Rostkovites
granulatus, one of the edible boleti, also occurred here in great
abundance.
After the turn of the tide, I went eastward from Newport
along the beach a few miles and turned into a lumber trail up a
small stream, where the usual virgin forest conditions prevailed
and the fungous flora was more like that in the Willamette
Valley. The day's collections, which were large and important,
were so saturated with water that they had to be spread out in a
steam- heated room over night to reduce them to a normal con­dition
and prevent many of them from collapsing completely.
During the return journey to Corvallis next morning, I was
able to complete the descriptions and have the specimens ready
for the much- needed drying process.
Continued adverse weather conditions caused us to leave for
California a few days earlier than we had planned. The Oregon
collections, comprising nearly 400 field numbers, were shipped
direct to New York and we caught the midnight express at
Albany, November 16, bound for San Francisco.
The railway journey from Corvallis to San Francisco occupied
two days, our train being held up fourteen hours at Keswick by a
wreck. The Siskiyou Mountains, separating Oregon from Cali­fornia,
were crossed after a very steep climb up to 4,000 feet
from the fertile and beautiful Rogue River Valley. Soon after
leaving Ashland, we entered a forest of oaks so abundantly
covered with mistletoe that the trees appeared evergreen after
JOURNAL OF THE NEW YORK BOTANICAL GARDEN.
IX THE HEART OF MUIR WOODS.
their leaves had fallen. The southeastern slope of the Siskiyou
range was clothed with a splendid forest of Pinus ponderosa,
much resembling the forest of Montezuma pine west of Jalapa
in Mexico.
As we descended into the valley and crossed the line into
California, a very decided change took place in the climate and
the flora, owing to the small rainfall. Stunted, thorny shrubs,
and scattered trees ( Libocedrus decurrens) partly covered old lava
streams and volcanic hillocks. At Redding, cycads were growing
in the open and new trees of various kinds appeared, belonging
to a warmer and drier region. Several species of oaks, most of
them evergreen, took the place of the single species found in
Washington and Oregon. The large spherical live- oaks are left
in the fields for shade, as palms are in the tropics. At Vina, the
largest vineyard in the world, belonging to Stanford University,
is located. The vines are kept cut back to short stumps very
close to the ground, giving them a totally different appearance
from those of either northern or southern Europe. Eucalyptus
trees, so commonly planted in southern California, were first
seen at Marysville, not far from Sacramento. Extensive or­chards,
hop- fields, cattle ranches, and wheat- fields dotted the
valley in this region, and the entire country as far as the eye
could reach seemed a fertile and promising one.
The first excursion for fungi after reaching San Francisco was
made to Golden Gate Park, a large and handsome public planta­tion
overlooking both the city and the ocean. The season, how­ever,
was unusually dry and very few specimens were found, most
of these being gathered among the tree- ferns in a shaded ravine-
During a period of rainy weather, the extensive wooded areas
of this park should yield a rich harvest of fungi.
On Monday, November 20, we visited the University of
California and made arrangements through Professor Setchell
and Mrs. Brandegee to examine the Harkness' types of fungi
placed in storage by the California Academy of Sciences after
the loss of their building during the great earthquake. These
types are in envelopes within pasteboard boxes and are in good
condition. The Academy is preparing to erect a handsome
10
new building in Golden Gate Park in time for the Panama
Exposition.
November 22 was devoted to an excursion to Muir Woods,
the most famous collecting ground in the vicinity of San Fran­cisco.
From Mill Valley, charmingly located among hills and
redwood groves and easily reached by ferry and electric train,
the steep ascent of Mt. Tamalpais is easily negotiated in a train
of special construction and the descent to Muir Woods is made
by a gravity car. This whole region, including the mountain
with its stunted shrubs and herbs, and the deep gorges in its
flanks filled with immense redwoods ( Sequoia sempervirens) and
ferns, is of intense botanical interest.
Muir Woods is one of the few extensive tracts of virgin redwood
forest now in existence. In 1908, the 295 acres comprised in this
tract were given to the National Government by Mr. Kent and
dedicated in honor of John Muir, the celebrated geologist. The
largest trees, reaching 14 feet in diameter and 300 feet in height,
stand on the floor of the canon along the banks of a small stream.
A few other trees, such as fir, alder, maple, and tan- bark oak,
grow sparingly in the twilight between the towering redwood
trunks. Muir Inn, situated on a promontory between two
branches of the main canon, is an excellent base for explorations
in this vicinity. The best season for collecting fungi is usually
during January and February; the best for flowers is probably
in April.
On November 23, I went to Santa Rosa to see Mr. Burbank
and his experimental grounds. After devoting several hours of
his valuable time to my instruction and entertainment among
the long hedgerows of spineless cacti and other interesting and
important products of his genius, Mr. Burbank graciously re­marked:
" Most people take my time; a few give me theirs.
You are of the latter class." One experimental plot of several
acres surrounds the old homestead in the edge of the town; the
other, which is much larger, is at Sebastapol seven miles away.
Mr. Burbank is recognized as the greatest " selecter" of variations
in plants, especially in young plants; there is no limit to his
patience or devotion where a beneficial variety is concerned; he
11
works with millions of seeds and thousands of seedlings in many
plant families and from fd\ parts of the world, and the climate
of Santa Rosa is peculiarly favorable for plant growth and
development. He has the power from long experience to judge
plants at a very early stage, and he has also developed methods
of forcing them quickly into fruit. An old apple tree stands in
his grounds, which has been forced to mother as many as 600 tiny
seedlings at one time in order to induce them to fruit in a year
or two instead of requiring five to ten years. In this and many
other ways, time and space are saved and quick results are
obtained.
On the way to Santa Rosa, the town of San Rafael was passed,
in the vicinity of which Moore collected practically all of the
gill- fungi recorded in Harkness and Moore's list of Pacific Coast
fungi.
On Friday, November 24, we left San Francisco for Palo Alto,
the seat of Stanford University, and arranged for a collecting
trip the next day with Professor L. S. Abrams in the Santa Cruz
Mountains. Starting early, we drove to Preston's Ravine, at
the foot of the mountains, where nearly a hundred numbers were
found; then crossed over the range at an elevation of 2,000 feet
and descended the western slope to La Honda, eighteen miles
from Stanford, where we collected quite a number of interesting
fungi in the moist redwood forest, and returned between seven
and eight o'clock in the evening.
Palo Alto is a model town and Stanford University one of the
most attractive institutions of its kind. The handsome buildings
are all constructed according to a definite plan, and a considerable
part of the campus of 8,000 acres is laid out in walks and drive­ways
shaded with a variety of palms and bordered by groves of
eucalyptus, live- oak, madronio, and various conifers and other
evergreen trees. There are at present about 1,800 students at
Stanford, 500 of whom are women. The institution is planned
to accommodate not over 2,000, and it was decreed by the founder
that not more than one fourth of these should be women, for
the reason that an education under such favorable conditions
and circumstances was deemed more necessary and more useful
to men.
12
Nearly two days were required to properly describe and care
for the collections made at Preston's. Ravine and La Honda.
Some time also was devoted to the examination of specimens
in the herbarium of the university. On the afternoon of Novem­ber
28, I lectured before the professors and students of the
botanical department on the subject of poisonous and edible
fungi. Professor Abrams entertained us at his home the same
evening. The following day, the final shipment of specimens
was made and we left for Los Angeles and Pasadena, arriving
at the latter place in time to enjoy Thanksgiving dinner with
Mr. Daniel Wilson.
Pasadena is blessed with a superb climate, and is the winter
home of one hundred and twenty- five millionaires. The houses
are scattered over the low hills at the foot of Mt. Lowe and Mt.
Wilson, the street borders and large yards being filled with
pepper- trees, palms, climbing roses, orange- trees, and a great
variety of subtropical decorative plants. McClatchie, the my­cologist,
lived here and made the largest existing collection of
the mosses and fungi of southern California.
On the morning of December 1, I left Pasadena on the " Cali­fornia
Limited" for New York, passing quickly from the great,
fertile San Bernardino Valley up to the sterile tableland sparsely
clothed with yucca and sage- brush, and on through the boundless
desert to the region of the Grand Canon and the Petrified Forest,
where huge trees of past ages lie embalmed in agate, thence
through thickets of dwarf red cedar and pinon for hour after
hour, across the continental divide, past the pueblos of various
Indian tribes, over Raton Pass at an elevation of nearly 8,000
feet, and down to the broad cultivated prairies again, with their
wheat, corn, cattle, yucca, cottonwoods, jack- rabbits, and prairie-dog
villages, until the Mississippi was reached at St. Louis.
The journey was broken here to visit the Missouri Botanical
Garden and Washington University. The crowded collections
of tender plants at the garden are to be housed next winter in a
splendid new glasshouse 300 feet long and 60 feet high at the
central dome, about equal in size to the famous Palm House at
Kew Gardens. The library is one of the best in the country,
13
and both it and the extensive herbarium have been largely
transferred to steel cases in a strictly fireproof building. The
fungi collected on the Harriman Alaskan Expedition, some of
which occur also in Washington, are to be found here.
Professor W. Trelease, the director, received me cordially and
devoted most of the day to my instruction, entertaining me at
his home in the evening. Professor G. T. Moore piloted me over
the University, which is rapidly expanding in equipment and
scope, and we lunched together at the University Club. After
dinner, I attended the meeting of the St. Louis Academy of
Sciences, an old and famous organization, of which the botanist
Engelmann was the first president, and Eads, the architect of
the great bridge over the Mississippi, one of the charter members.
Leaving St. Louis Monday night, I arrived in New York early
Wednesday morning, December 6, and found that all my collec­tions
had arrived in excellent condition. For convenience of
reference, a list of these, with localities and numbers, is given
below.
COLLECTIONS ON THE PACIFIC COAST.
Seattle, Washington October 20- November 1 N03. 1- 732
Tacoma, Washington October 26
Tacoma Prairies, Washington October 26
Glen Brook, Oregon November 7 " 733- 792
Mill City, Oregon November 9 " 793- 879
Corvallis, Oregon November 6 - 1 1 . . . . " 880- 1025
Newport, Oregon November 13 " 1026- 1099
Golden Gate Park, California November 21 " 1100- 1124
Muir Woods, California November 22 " 1125- 1158
Preston's Ravine, California November 25 " 1159- 1241
La Honda, California November 25 " 1242- 1305
It is estimated that this collection of fungi comprises about
3,700 specimens, and is easily the largest, most comprehensive,
and best ever made on the Pacific Coast. When it has been
worked over and compared with other collections from the same
region, our knowledge of the fungous flora of that vast and
intensely interesting land lying west of the Cascade Mountains
will be much increased.
Aside from the interesting botanical features of the Pacific
Coast, the botanical explorer cannot fail to be impressed with the
14
vastness of things— ranches, orchards, vineyards, forests, lands
to be tenanted, deserts to be reclaimed, mines to be worked— and
with the big- hearted, patriotic, unshackled, enterprising, hopeful
men and women who are pushing this sect'on to the front. The
enthusiasm everywhere shown in preparation for the coming
Panama Exposition is only an illustration of the human energy
that is actively asserting itself from one end of the Coast to the
other.
Respectfully submitted,
W. A. MURRILL,
Assistant Director.
CONFERENCE NOTES.
The conference of the scientific staff and students was held
in the main laboratory on December 4. The first paper, by
Mr. William R. Maxon, of the U. S. National Museum, was
entitled " Notes on the Tree Ferns of North America." The
speaker enumerated the main features regarded as important
in the major classification of the Cyatheaceae, and particularly
of the tribe Cyatheae which is usually regarded as embracing
three genera, Cyathea, Alsophila and Hemitelia, separated mainly
upon characters of the indusium. Jenman and, more recently,
Copeland have argued against maintaining these genera, the
latter author reducing all to the single genus Cyathea, with
several subgenera. The justification of this treatment was
discussed at some length and the need suggested of a thorough
revision of the group upon characters of minute morphology
other than those of the indusium.
Mr. Maxon also reviewed a recent paper* describing a peculiar
new fern from Panama, Polypodium podocarpum, a subpinnate
species in which the sori are essentially apical upon special lobes
of the pinnae and the apices of the fronds and of the pinnae are
of indefinite evolution. The pinnae are produced frequently
to a remarkable length, especially by injury to other parts of
* Maxon, William R. A remarkable new fern from Panama. ( Smithsonian
Miscellaneous Collections. Vol. 56, part 24. Pp. 1- 5, pis. 1- 3. November 22,
1911.)
15
the frond. Several other examples of indeterminate apical
growth in Polypodium were given and specimens of these shown.
The topic " A Subgenus of Vittaria," was presented by Dr.
R. C. Benedict as follows: Vittaria J. E. Smith is a genus of
perhaps forty species of tropical ferns, nearly all of which have
leaves of grass- like outline. Its classification is, therefore, more
difficult than in the case of most fern genera, and is indeed much
the same problem as would be offered by a genus of grasses if
no flowers and fruits were available. The differentiation of the
species demands a careful study of the microscopic characters
of the spores, paraphyses, and scales, and a study by cross-sections,
of the arrangement of the vascular tissues in stem and
leaf, and of the position in which the sporangia are borne. By
using these methods of study, it has been found possible to deter­mine
specific limits accurately.
The paper presented at the conference was concerned with
one subgenus of Vittaria, Radiovittaria including seven species,
the characters of which have been sufficiently determined for
publication. Illustrations of the seven species were shown.
These with the text descriptions and discussion are shortly to be
published. According to this paper the subgenus Radiovittaria
includes seven species viz., V. minima ( Baker) Benedict, V.
Gardneriana F6e, V. remota Fee, V. stipitata Kunze, V. Morit-ziana
Mett., V. latifolia Benedict, and V. Williamsi Benedict.
The two last mentioned species are to be described in the forth­coming
paper. Both are based on material collected in Bolivia
by Mr. R. S. Williams of the Garden staff. V. minima has
only recently been placed in Vittaria, the material here included
having been previously placed in two other genera.
A. B. STOUT.
NOTES, NEWS AND COMMENT.
Mr. Percy Wilson, assistant curator, spent a part of the month
of December and January collecting in the provinces of Pinar del
Rio and Havana, Cuba.
Mr. W. R. Maxon of the National Museum, Washington,
recently spent several days at the Garden in continuation of
his work on ferns for North American Flora.
16
Dr. Charles Thom of the Experiment Station, Storrs, Con­necticut,
spent a day at the Garden recently, consulting the
library.
Dr. B. M. Davis, assistant professor of botany in the Uni­versity
of Pennsylvania, was at the Garden December 19, looking
up specimens of Oenothera to be used in work on mutation.
Dr. C. B. Robinson, formerly in the employ of the Garden,
and for the past three years economic botanist in the Bureau of
Science, Manila, has returned and is spending some time at the
Garden.
Professor J. C. Arthur and Dr. F. D. Kern spent several days
at the Garden the early part of January studying rusts in con­nection
with work on North American Flora.
Mr. R. E. Stone of Cornell University visited the Garden in
January to consult the fungous collections with special reference
to parasites on leguminous plants.
Among other recent visitors at the Garden were Drs. A. F.
Blakeslee and G. P. Clinton of the Agricultural College, Storrs,
Connecticut; Professors J. C. Blair and Chalres D. Crandall of
the University of Illinois; Dr. E. W. Olive of the State College
of South Dakota and Professor R. B. Thomson of the University
of Toronto.
Mr. Edward W. Berry, formerly a student of the Garden,
has recently published a book ( Bulletin No. 3 of the Geological
Survey of New Jersey) of 233 pages and 29 plates on " The
Raritan Formation." About 100 of the 128 plate figures of
fossil plants are reproductions of figures in Newberry's " Flora
of the Amboy Clays," the type specimens of which are in the
museum of the New York Botanical Garden. Numerous in­cidental
references may also be found to other types and figured
specimens in the museum, collected by Dr. Arthur Hollick in
Long Island, Block Island and Martha's Vineyard.
The meeting of the various scientific societies of the country
at Washington during Christmas week was a notable one and
well attended. The botanists had very full programs, as well
as a dinner and a smoker, in which between one hundred and
17
two hundred took part. The Garden was represented by Dr.
N. L. Britton, Dr. W. A. Murrill, Professor R. A. Harper, and
Mr. A. B. Stout. A movement to unite all American botanical
associations under the Botanical Society of America was auspi­ciously
inaugurated. The next meeting of the societies will be
held in Cleveland; and the one following in Atlanta.
The Field Museum of Natural History, which has cooperated
with the Garden in explorations in the Bahamas, will shortly
erect a new museum building costing about five million dollars.
The collections will be grouped in it under Anthropology, Botany,
Geology, and Zoology. The California Academy of Sciences
is also to have a new building in time for the Panama Exposition.
A new tropical laboratory for botanical and zoological re­search
is soon to be established at Mayaguez, Porto Rico, with
Dr. F. L. Stevens as director.
Dr. W. J. Gies, consulting chemist of the Garden and professor
of biological chemistry in Columbia University, is one of the
editors and has been very active in the establishment of the
Biochemical Bulletin, volume I, No. I of which appeared re­cently.
This publication which is to appear quarterly, each
volume containing about five hundred pages, is the official organ
of the Columbia University Biochemical Association for the
publication of papers of a biochemical nature. In addition to the
publication of biochemical research, some of the aims of the
Bulletin are the extension of general biochemical knowledge and
to furnish a means of keeping the workers in the home laboratories
in closer touch with those who have gone out to other fields of
labor. The first number of the bulletin contains 160 pages and
is devoted to scientific papers and notes and news of a biochemical
nature. One of the papers ( pp. 7- 41, with three plates) is by
Professor Francis Ernest Lloyd and is entitled, " The tannin-colloid
complexes in the fruit of the persimmon, Diospyros."
We understand that the Biochemical Bulletin will aim to give
special encouragement to the development of chemical studies
in botany and that chemical papers on botanical subjects will
be welcomed to its pages. Botanists are accordingly invited to
contribute to the success and usefulness of the Bulletin.
Among the editors and collaborators we note the names of
the following botanists: Carl L. Alsberg, Gertrude S. Burling­ham,
E. D. Clark, C. A. Darling, C. Stuart Gager, Benjamin
C. Gruenberg, William T. Home, Homer D. House, J. E.
Kirkwood, Elsie A. Kupfer, Burton E. Livingston, Winifred J.
Robinson, Fred J. Seaver and A. D. Selby.
Many of the orchids in range I are now flowering freely. In
house no. 15, next to the large dome, many of the Venus- slip­pers,
represented by the genera Paphiopedilum and Phragmi-pedium
are in bloom. Among these maybe mentioned, as espe­cially
attractive, Paphiopedilum Alcides and P. " Wm. McKin-ley,"
of hybrid origin, and an unusually fine form of Paphiopedi­lum
insigne, known as Harefield Hall. The flower of this variety
is especially large, with the standard broad and flat and beauti­fully
marked with large spots. It is one of the best of the P
insigne forms. Many of the genus Phragmipedium are also in
bloom. One of these, of hybrid origin, is P. Cleola, a pure white
flushed with rose, and resembling, in general form, the native
white lady- slipper, Cypridedium reginae. The rosy flowers of
Laelia anceps, a Mexican species, are just making their appear­ance,
and the striking Laelia superbiens, well described by its
specific name, is coming into flower, its bright flowers borne, as
in many others of the genus, in bunches at the top of long naked
stems. It is a native of Guatemala. In strong contrast to this
is Laelia flava, of Brazil, with its smaller yellow flowers. A plant
of the Javanese orchid, Vanda tricolor suavis, with large white
flowers spotted with purple, is attractive, not only on account of
the beauty of its colorings, but also for its pleasing fragrance.
In the far- away Philippines grows Platyclinis glumacea. An ex­cellent
plant pf this is now in full bloom with many long slender
drooping racemes of yellowish flowers. Oncidium Kramerianum,
wild in northern South America, is striking in its coloring of
orange and brown. The flower, with its long tail- like petals, is
at the end of a long naked stem, resembling much a butterfly at
rest, hence its name of the butterfly orchid. There are many
other interesting orchids in this house. In house no. 12 are
ID
many plants of the Himalayan, Paphiopedilum insigne, in a
number of color varieties, now in a profusion of bloom; and next
to these a collection of the Andean genus, Masdevallia, some of
which are now flowering.
Meteorology for December.— The total precipitation for Decem­ber
was 4.09 inches of which 1.48 inches fell as snow. The
maximum temperature of 650 was recorded on December 12 and
a minimum temperature of 10.50 was recorded on December 5.
ACCESSIONS.
MUSEUMS AND HERBARIUM.
14 specimens of hepatics from Quebec. ( Given by Dr. C. B. Robinson.)
4 specimens of mosses from Missouri. ( By exchange with Dr. John Davis.)
2 specimens of Leskea algarvica from Portugal. ( By exchange with Dr. George
Roth.)
3 specimens of mosses from Guadeloupe Island, Lower California. ( Collected
by Dr. J. N. Rose.)
18 specimens of Andreaea from Greenland, Sweden and Spitzbergen. ( Given by
Dr. A. LeRoy Andrews.)
13 specimens of flowering plants from the eastern United States. ( Given by
Mr. E. E. Steele.)
2 specimens of Chamaesyce glyptosperma from Ontario. ( Given, by Mr. John
Dearness.)
1 specimen of Chamaesyce from Italy. ( Given by Dr. N. L. Britton.)
1 specimen of Kneiffia Sumstinei from Pennsylvania. ( By exchange with the
Carnegie Museum, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.)
2 specimens of Linaria Linaria from Ontario. ( Given by Mr. William Scott.)
2 specimens of mosses from Saguenay County, Quebec, ( Given by Dr. C. B.
Robinson.)
4 specimens of Riccia from Connecticut. ( Given by Miss Annie Lorenz.)
4,500 specimens from Cuba. ( Collected by Dr. J. A. Shafer.)
1 specimen of Parthenium Hysterophorus from Louisiana. ( Given by Mr. E. C.
Wurzlow.)
1 specimen of Festuca octoflora from Alabama. ( Given by Dr. R. M. Harper.)
60 specimens of ferns from eastern North America. ( Distributed by Dr. Philip
Dowell.)
2 specimens of fungi from Siberia. ( Given by the United States Department of
Agriculture.)
3,700 specimens of fungi from Washington, Oregon and California. ( Collected
by Dr. and Mrs. W. A. Murrill.)
II specimens of ferns from the vicinity of New York City. ( Given by Dr,
Philip Dowell.)
20
86 herbarium specimens from British America. ( By exchange with the Geo­logical
Survey of Canada.)
2 herbarium specimens from New York. ( Given by Mr. K. P. Janson.)
49 specimens of flowering plants from Colorado. ( By exchange with Mr-
George E. Osterhout.)
4 specimens of fungi from North America. ( By exchange with Professor J. C.
Arthur.)
164 herbarium specimens from British Columbia and Hudson Bay. ( By ex­change
with the Geological Survey of Canada.)
4 specimens of Amaranthaceae from Ohio. ( By exchange with Professor John
H. Schaffner.)
2 specimens of Xanthium from Colorado. ( By exchange with Professor J. C
Arthur and Dr. F. D. Kern.)
5 specimens of Potentilla. ( By exchange with the Seed Laboratory, Ottawa,
Canada.)
48 specimens of mosses from Washington and Oregon. ( By exchange with
Professor A. S. Foster.)
407 specimens from St. Eustatius, Saba and St. Martin, West Indies. ( By
exchange with the Botanical Garden, Utrecht, Holland.)
PLANTS AND SEEDS.
12 plants for conservatories. ( By exchange with National Museum, through
Dr. J. N. Rose.)
2 plants of Agave. ( Given by Mrs. C. Cole Bradley.)
3 plants of Campanula isophylla. ( Given by Mrs. N. L. Britton.)
1 plant of Primula. ( Given by Dr. H. H. Rusby.)
1,260 lily bulbs for decorative plantations. ( Purchased.)
1 plant of Cycas revoluta. ( Given by Mrs. J. H. T. Stempel.)
6 plants of Cordyiine australis. ( Given by Mr. H. Schniewind, Jr.)
3 orchids for conservatories. ( By exchange with Messrs. Lager & Hurrell.)
2 plants for conservatories. ( By exchange with Messrs. Knight & Struck.)
6 orchids for the conservatories. ( By exchange with Mr. J. A. Manda.)
66 plants for conservatories, derived from seeds from; various sources.
2 packets of seeds of Manihot. ( Given by Mr. F. H. Hunicke.)
1 packet of seed. ( Given by Dr. H. H. Rusby.)
Aembers of tbe Corporation*
EDWARD D. ADAMS,
JOHN D. ARCHBOLD,
GEORGE F. EAKER,
EUGENE P. BICKNELL,
GEORGE S. BOWDOIN,
PROF. N. L. BRITTON,
HON. ADDISON BROWN,
PROF. EDW. S. BURGESS,
DR. NICHOLAS M. BUTLER,
ANDREW CARNEGIE,
PROF. C. F. CHANDLER,
WILLIAM G. CHOATE.
CHARLES F, Cox,
PAUL D. CRAVATH,
W. BAYARD CUTTING,
CLEVELAND H. DODGE.
A. F. ESTABROOK.
H. C. FAHNESTOCK,
SAMUEL W. FAIRCHILD,
JAMES B. FORD,
HENRY W. DE FOREST,
ROBERT W. DE FOREST,
PROF. W. J. GIES,
PROF. R. A. HARPER,
EDWARD S. HARKNESS,
HENRY R. HOYT,
THOS. H. HUBBARD,
ADRIAN ISELIN, JR.,
WALTER B. JENNINGS,
JOHN I. KANE,
EUGENE KELLY, JR.,
PROF. JAMES F. KEMP,
HON. EGERTON L.
EDW. V. Z. LANE,
PROF. FREDERIC S. LEE,
HON. SETH LOW,
DAVID LYDIG,
EDGAR L. MARSTON,
W. J. MATHESON,
OGDEN MILLS,
J. PIERPONT MORGAN,
THEODORE W. MYERS,
FREDERIC R. NEWBOLD,
PROF. HENRY F. OSBORN,
LOWELL M. PALMER,
GEORGE W. PERKINS,
JAMES R. PITCHER,
M. F. PLANT,
JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER,
WILLIAM ROCKEFELLER,
PROF. H. H. RUSBY,
JACOB H. SCHIFF,
MORTIMER L. SCHIFF,
JAMES A. SCRYMSER,
HENRY A. SIEBRECHT,
WILLIAM D. SLOANE,
NELSON SMITH,
JAMES SPEYER,
FRANCIS L. STETSON,
CHARLES G. THOMPSON,
DR. W. GILMAN THOMPKA
SAMUEL THORNE,
MYLES TIERNEY,
LOUIS C. TIFFANY,
GEORGE W. VANDERBILT,
WINTHROP, JR.
P U B L I C A T I O N S
The New York Botanical Garden
J o u r n a l oi t h e N e w Y o r k Botanical Garden, monthly, illustrated, con
Uining notes, and non- technical articles of general interest. Free to members of the
Garden. To others, i o cents a copy; $ 1,00 a year. Now in its twelfth volume.
Mycologia, bimonthly, illustrated in color and otherwise ; devoted to fungi,
including lichens; containing technical articles and news and notes of general in­terest.
£ 3.00 a year ; single copies not for sale. [ Not offered in exchange.] Now
in its third volume.
Bulletin of the N e w Y o r k B o t a n i c a l Garden, containing the annual reports
of the Director- in- Chief and other official documents, and technical articles embodying
results of investigations carried out in the Garden. Free to all members of the
Garden ; to others, $ 3.00 per volume. Seven volumes.
N o r t h American Flora. Descriptions of the wild plants of North America,
including Greenland, the West Indies and Central America. Planned to be com­pleted
in thirty volumes. Roy. 8vo. Each volume to consist of four or more parts.
Subscription price $ 1.50 per part; a limited number of separate parts will be sold
for $ 2.00 each. [ Not offered in exchange.]
Vol. 22, part 1, issued May 22, 1905. Rosales: Podostemonaceae, Crassula­ceae,
Penthoraceae, Parnassiaceae.
Vol. 22, part 2, issued December 18, 1905. Saxifragaceae, Hydrangeaceae,
Cunoniaceae, Iteaceae, Hamamelidaceae, Pterostemonaceae, Altingiaceae, Phyllo-oomaceae.
Vol. 7, part 1, issued Oct. 4, 1006. Ustilaginaceae, Tilletiaceae.
Vol. 7, part 2, issued March 6, 1907. Coleosporiaceae, Uredinaceae, Aecidia-ceae
( pars).
Vol. 25, part 1, issued August 24, 1907. Geraniaceae, Oxalidaceae, Linaceae,
Erythroxylaceae.
Vol. 9, parts 1 and 2, issued December 19, 1907, and March 12, 1908. Poly-poraceae.
( Parts I and 2 no longer sold separately.)
Vol. 22, part 3, issued June 12, 1908. Grossulariaceae, Platanaceae, Crosioso-mataceae,
Connaraceae, Calycanthaceae, Rosaceae ( pars).
Vol. 22, part 4, issued Nov. 20, 1908. Rosaceae ( pars).
Vol. 17, part 1, issued June 30, 1909. Typhales— Poales.
Vol. 16, part 1, issued Nov. 6, 1909 Ophioglossales— Filicales.
Vol. 9, part 3, issued Feb. 3, 1910. Boletaceae, Chantereleae, and Lactarieae
( pars).
Vol, 25, part 2, issued Tune 3, 1910. Tropaeolaceae— Malpighiaceae.
Vol. 3, part I, issued Dec. 29, 1910. Nectriaceae, Hypocreaceae, Chaetomiaceae,
Fimetariaceae.
Vol. 25, part 3, issued May 6, 1911. Rutaceae— Burseraceae.
Memoirs of t h e N e w Y o r k Botanical Gardeu. Price to members of the
Garden, $ 1.00 per volume. To others, $ 2.00. [ Not offered in exchange.]
Vol. I. An Annotated Catalogue of the Flora of Montana and the Yellowstone
Park, by Per Axel Rydberg. ix - f- 492 p p . , with detailed map. 1900.
Vol. I I . The Influence of Light and Darkness upon Growth and Development,
by D. T. MacDougal. xvi + 320 p p . , with 176 figures. 1903.
Vol. I I I . Studies of Cretaceous Coniferous Remains from Kreischerville, New
York, by Dr. Arthur Hollick and Dr. Edward Charles Jeffrey, viii- J- 138 pp., with
29 plates. 1909.
Vol. IV. Effects of the Rays of Radium on Plants, by Charles Stuart Gager.
viii - f- 278 pp., with 73 figures and 14 plates. 1908.
C o n t r i b u t i o n s from the N e w Y o r k Botanical Garden. A series of tech­nical
papers written by students or members of the staff, _ nd reprinted from joumali
other than the above. Price, 25 cents each. $ 5.00 per volume. Five volumes.
R E C E N T N U M B E R S 25 C E N T S EACH.
143. Results of a Preliminary Study of the So- called Kenai Flora of Alaska bv
Arthur Hollick. 7
144. The Paleobotanical Collections of the New York Botanical Garden bv
Arthur Hollick. ' J
145. Notes on Rosaceae— VI, by P. A. Rydberg.
146. Phycological Studies- V. Some Marine Algae of Lower California
Mexico, by Marshall A. Howe.
NEW YORK BOTANICAL GARDEN
BRONX PARK. NPW YORK AITV